Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Interesting Sights

I was thinking today that there is rarely a dull day on the farm. Living with a farm full of large, accident prone creatures there is always someone walking around with a scrape or some sort of boo boo. Or they are doing something that makes me look twice, and I often have a few minutes of freaking out as well.

A couple of weeks ago I was in one of the fields and happened to look up into an adjoining field in time to see Wiz go down for a roll at the edge of a wooded area. Nothing at all unusual about seeing a horse roll. I almost always watch just because they always look so happy and care free. So I'm watching Wiz roll and he is having a great time, and then he flopped over onto the other side. Then trouble started. When he flopped over he flopped into/on a large, downed tree branch.

This really freaked poor Wiz out. He tried really hard to get back up but he needed to flop back to his other side to do that. However the tree branch was really making that hard. Wiz looked like a bug on its back with his legs flailing up in the air. He finally managed to flop back over again and get up, and he quietly resumed grazing. I walked out to check and make sure he was ok. He had several patches of missing hair in some interesting places but was otherwise fine. If I hadn't seen it happening I would be forever wondering what did happen to cause him to have all the scrapes in odd places.

A couple of days ago I was feeding dinner and as I was putting Boo's feedbag on noticed what appeared to be a hematoma on the left side of his jaw. He also had a small patch that I wouldn't even call a scrape, just some missing hair. It was kind of partly underneath his jaw. No sign of a puncture wound or anything. He wasn't sensitive, let me palpate everywhere with no reaction, I took his temperature which was normal and he ate happily. He did not have a nasal discharge or any unusual odor coming from his nostrils or mouth. Just a hematoma on his jaw and a small patch of missing hair underneath the jaw. We started him on antibiotics and anti-inflamatories. Jason is convinced that he got his head stuck in a tree or something and had to struggle some to get it out.

A few days ago I noticed a horse down in dead horse position in the pasture. I realized it was Spike. I've never seen Spike do this although his mom had told me he was a frequent napper. As I said to her I hurdled two fence lines and sprinted through the pasture like I was in training for the Olympics screaming Spike's name the whole time. Spike quickly got up from all the noise, gave me a look like "WTF is wrong with you lady, can't a horse take a nap around here?" and started grazing.

There is no telling what tomorrow will bring.


Elfin

Thomas

Apollo

Tony

Ivan

the group of deer that we see in the same pasture every evening at about 5pm; the horses don't even give them a second glace

Fuzzy, Murphy, Wiz and Dutch

Alex and B-Rad grooming each other
Justin and Boo grooming each other

Sebastian, Asterik, Faune, Winston and Romeo

Lightening and Teddy

Wiz playing in the water again

Missy, MyLight, Harmony and Cuffie
MyLight

6 comments:

Unknown said...

"Can't a horse get a nap around here?" HA! That really gave me a good laugh. I love when you panic over nothing and they look at you like you're nuts.

Lara said...

Melissa you are the best horse mom. They're so lucky to have you around! :)

Anonymous said...

We've had people call us - our pastures are surrounded by houses - and say "did you know that some of your horses are dead?" We have to assure them that the horses are indeed sleeping (at least that's been the case so far!).

kickshaw said...

Never a dull moment! I love the pictures!

Vivian, Apollo's Mom said...

The same thing happened with me on Monday after the weekend with Red (I usually only see him M, W, and F). He was down in the field for an extended period of time which he NEVER is. I went running, banging his halter against my leg as I ran and calling out as best I could which is not great for a 56 1/2 year old woman who is missing most of her right lung- either run or yell- I can't really do both at the same time any more! Anyway, he was just having a nice nap in the sand. Apollo looks great, by the way!

LuLo Designs/Blue Eyed Tango said...

Melissa this sounds all too familiar! I really like how you captured Wiz in the water playing! Nice one!